# My first pipe! Brigham 265



## z0diac (May 18, 2010)

Hopefully pipe pics are allowed :???:

With cigars opening up a whole new world to me - the world of tobacco that actually TASTES GOOD (me being a cigarette smoker), I decided to broaden my horizon once again and delve into the world of pipes and pipe tobacco.

I can always remember as a kid, my uncle smoking a pipe and absolutely LOVED the aroma coming off of it. Sweet smoke, like the smell of something really really good cooking in grandma's oven.

So after doing days upon days of research on youTube and web sites about pipes, I ran down to a local B&M shop today and picked one up. I initially had my mind SET on a Peterson.. but all they had at the shop (aside from cheapies) were a brand called "Brigham". I picked up a "Brigham 265", although there were other nice ones to choose from as well.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out they're a Canadian company (me being a patriotic canuck myself) when I got home and read up about them.

I had some problems smoking it the first time - I didn't think it was rocket science, but something I did was wrong, giving it a bitter taste on the tongue, absolutely NO flavor on the palette, and little through the nose. Although one thing I like about pipe tobacco is that it's so mild (at least this "Mr. B's Vanilla" is) that you can continually exhale through the nose, with no spice/pepper whatsoever).

I'd go into further detail and ask questions on what I did wrong, but I know this isn't the forum for it. Gotta go find me'self a pipe forum I guess :dizzy:

Anyway, without further ado.. here's my first pipe, a Brigham 265 :


----------



## veteranvmb (Aug 6, 2009)

I have been considering buying one of those, because they advertise their pipes as remedying the infamous tongue bite. I get a lot of tongue bite from pipes and have almost ceased the practice. 
Next step is one of those brigham pipes. 
Enjoy your pipe and let us know how it smokes. 

Jerry


----------



## z0diac (May 18, 2010)

veteranvmb said:


> I have been considering buying one of those, because they advertise their pipes as remedying the infamous tongue bite. I get a lot of tongue bite from pipes and have almost ceased the practice.
> Next step is one of those brigham pipes.
> Enjoy your pipe and let us know how it smokes.
> 
> Jerry


Actually it smoked terrible - probably due to my inexperience.

I read that when breaking in a new bowl, only fill it half way or so. Then fill it full, then half way, etc.. until you get some nice cake build-up on the inside of the bowl.

My first mistake was rubbing the stem down with Purell. Even though the store clerk told ME not to touch it to my mouth when looking at it (not that I would have anyway), I don't know that everyone else before me didn't slobber all over it.

Apparently alcohol causes the sulfur inside the chemicals of the stem to rise to the surface. My stem instantly went brownish, and took on a VERY acrid/bitter taste. I thought it had been dipped in poison!

Anyway, upon filling half way, lighting, tampering down, then puffing away - it was an absolute wind tunnel. No resistance whatsoever. I could literally breath full breaths through it if I wanted to. And the smoke had zero taste to it.

I put in 3 pinches of tobacco: the first just dropped in, the 2nd pushed down a little, and the 3rd pushed in a little firmer. Maybe I didn't squish the flake down enough? I was expecting a bit of resistance, with nice creamy flavorful smoke. But it was like breathing air straight through, and air straight out (with smoke in it).

And towards the bottom it started to take on a more acrid taste. Probably from the alcohol-tainted stem which I messed up even before lighting. GRRR.

I'm really not a fan of the plastic component they use in stems anyway. I wish they'd find some nice hardwood, or ANY type of natural material for the stem. You get this nice brier bowl with awesome grains in it, then they stick on a cheap-looking hunk of plastic on it. Never made sense to me.

One thing noticed with the curved stems, is that druel (sp?) tends to get into it a bit. So I was always very self-aware of taking a draw and not doing the equivalent of 'backwashing', hah. But having to stay so aware like that kinda took away from the pleasure of just smoking the thing.

But back to the wind tunnel part... I thought that if it was packed way to loosely, and since there was only a half bowl, that it would burn really quick. Surprisingly I was smoking the thing for a good 20 mins, of moderate puffing. I'm guessing if I packed it tight to build up some resistance when taking a draw, and packing it to the rim, this thing could take well over an hour to smoke! ( ?? )

(after having that air-tunnel of a pipe smoke I really wanted to just wrap my lips around a tightly packed robusto after, hah)


----------

